You can’t deal with your inner critic if you can’t even tell that it’s there.
Having a loud inner critic can be the most annoying thing in the world.
Here you are trying to be your best self and do some great things in the world and there’s a constant nagging voice that is telling you that what you’re doing is just not good enough.
The problem is that sometimes you don’t even know that your inner critic is in the room. You’re just feeling bad but you don’t really know why.
It can be hard to identify that your inner critic is there because it’s been there for so long that it’s part of the regular inner soundscape.
Plus you identify with it so much that you have a hard time noticing that it only represents a part of your experience. That there’s another part that is being targeted by its criticism.
You can’t deal with your inner critic if you can’t even tell that it’s there.
Here are a few signs:
When there’s a self-demeaning tone to your thoughts like “I’m so inadequate, stupid etc”.
When you hear yourself use prescriptive language like “I should/shouldn’t, need to, have to…”
When you feel like you need to change a part of yourself in order for you to be ok
Once you know it’s there the next thing to do is to treat it with compassion.
I know, it can be hard.
Why would you want to treat someone with compassion when they are being so relentlessly nasty and making your life so miserable?
Well, it might be easier if you remember that it’s being so judgey and cruel because it's scared.
Just like the bully who’s gone through so much trauma that the only way they can deal with how terrified and unsafe they feel in the world is by being aggressive.
What is the inner critic scared of, you might ask?
That’s a great question and if you ask it, it will probably give you an answer. But only if you’re really intent on listening with compassion.
Usually the inner critic’s fear is connected to something that it’s not wanting for you which is often, not coincidentally, exactly what it’s predicting.
If it’s telling you that you’re a failure for example, it doesn’t want failure for you.
A more positive way to look at it, which might make it easier to treat the inner critic with compassion, is to think of what it does want for you. In this case it wants you to be competent.